On Friday night, that new ordinance hit the city's website. It's below, along with instructions about how to submit comments. There will also be a public forum that "will be scheduled at a later date." Give it a look-see. See if it "levels the playing field," as intended, or if it's 21 pages too long, which is what council member Philip Kingston will tell you.

According to its agenda, the COG's RVFH Program "encourages a consistent and centralized approach to administration and regulation, standardized requirements for companies and drivers, ensured safety and seamless service throughout the region, and uniform enforcement to encourage a fair working environment for traditional and emerging service models." And to get there, the COG did what Dallas didn't: It hired an outside consultant -- Dallas-based LeighFisher -- to look at the landscape and tell the COG what's what.

Car-sharing and ride-booking services are now available worldwide, including nearly every major U.S. city. Demand for such services is rapidly expanding from city centers and university campuses to include travel to and from airports. They are likely to be offered at every major airport in the near future. To capture this business and prevent an unwelcome underground market from evolving at the airport, management should address this issue head on. It is time for airports to rethink and redesign their landside transportation policies and programs to provide for these new transportation services while honoring existing business agreements, regulations, and practices. Airport operators should accommodate both the traditional providers and the new players in the marketplace, with all participating in an open and transparent manner, subject to reasonable airport regulations, and paying their fair share of airport costs.

Which more or less echoes what Morris said a year ago: "The taxi industry has not advanced in technology for this century, others are taking advantage of that."

In a missive Morris sent to Dallas City Council members Sandy Greyson and Sheffie Kadane and others last month, he outlines the COG's timeline, which more or less dovetails with Dallas'. Morris says he hopes to have the regional plan in place by January or February, which is when Dallas will likely begin implementing its revised set of regulations. But in between are a lot of meetings, drafts and meetings. And meetings.

Morris and other RTC officials weren't available to Friday afternoon; neither was Sandy Greyson, the council member who headed Vonciel Jones Hill's task force that came up with the revised rules at the center of the current debate taking place at Dallas City Hall. So instead we turned to Kingston, who on Wednesday once more said that Dallas' new regulations are still far too restrictive, even if they do allow for Uber and Lyft.

The COG's rules on top of Dallas rules is "yet another argument for my position, which has been consistently from the beginning that the fewer regulations the better," Kingston says. "We don't know who's coming. We don't know what's entering the marketplace. Any regulation we put in place that isn't absolutely required by public safety is too much regulation. It's rearranging the sprinkles on a doughnut. It's saying, 'We want cars to be showroom-new.' Have we polled consumers? Would they take cars that aren't showroom-new for a slightly lower fare?"

"You do a very basic registration requirement and make them carry a ton of insurance and you make them do a criminal background check if you don't trust employers to do them, then you're done," says Kingston. "The COG, frankly, is being fairly respectful here, which isn't what they always do. They will let Dallas take the lead -- we've done the hard work -- and you'll see them wind up with something that mirrors Dallas. But I sure wish we'd back off regulations so we'd have less chance of convoluted regulations across the region. Meanwhile, the sun still rises in the east, cabs still pick up people from the airport, Uber gets people home from Uptown with their clothes misbuttoned, and no one gets hurt. Yet we're so worried we have to regulate this horrible environment where everyone is happy and gets everyone where they want to go."